One Plus One Equals Three

Map of Aboriginal Australia

Fascinating stuff: the map of Aboriginal Australia. Indicated are the original territories enjoyed by groupings of Aboriginal people. These groupings may have utilised their own particular language and each could have also contained clans and other dialects. The sheer number of groups at the 'Top End' is quite remarkable.

Another even more detailed (and zoom-able) map here – it contains information on Aboriginal tribes too. A great resource.

More on Norman Tindale, (he of the latter map, not the one above) a pioneering Australian archaeologist. "He was one of the first to successfully challenge the orthodoxy of the 1920s, that Aboriginal occupation of Australia had been relatively brief. His excavation of a 5000-year old Aboriginal rock shelter at Devon Downs on the Murray River in 1929 was a pivotal event."

Map above © D R Horton, Aboriginal Studies Press and Auslig/Sinclair, Knight, Merz 1996.

Breaking News: Info-graphic Humour

"Experts are still trying to determine the effect of the concentric circles on the long squiggly green objects located in the blue area."... "Joining us now is a concentric circle expert..."

Very funny – but, it must be said, perhaps a little tasteless in using the info-graphics that relate to the Asian tsunami of a few years back? Thanks Nosmo.

Ol' Time Religious Info-graphics

Devised by Clarence Larkin at the turn of last century, these remarkable images are visualisations of religious (christian) scriptures, themes, and biblical, er, prophecies. Above is a section of the diagram of hell and 'the underworld' - which looks rather unappealing and grim – but at least it's warm there...
Via Boing Boing.

Edushi: China's Cities Drawn and Mapped

Whilst Google uses satellite imagery, photographs and map overlays to create their mapping systems, China's Edushi uses intricate (and quite incredible) computer-based drawings to create their city maps. Edushi will 'virtually represent' many Chinese cities – a part of Hong Kong is shown above (and that's the city-demo you can use on their site). Each proposed city map will be complete with virtual community, game-like emulation advertisements and directory features. Try not to spend quite a bit of time here exploring and marvelling at the remarkable (and zoom-able) bird's-eye views of Hong Kong.

It's interesting to draw parallels with the pixel-illustrations of eBoy, but thus far, Edushi doesn't feature giant destructive robots and scantily-clad women riding missiles. Via PSFK.

Attempts to Kill the Worm Largely Unsuccessful

Channel 9 brought 'the worm' back last night. The worm is a somewhat informal – yet hardly scientific – data visualization that conveys viewer/audience response to the performance of political party leaders engaged in televised debate. We had one broadcast last night – and the worm made it fun. In short, the pollie goes good – worm goes up. Pollie goes bad, worm goes down.

The Liberal Party* were not in favour of using the worm in the most recent debate. The party's leader (and current Prime Minister) John Howard is somewhat notorious for his downhill slumping worminess in such debates – and currently, he needs all the help and positive spin he can get with his party trailing markedly in the polls. But the worm snuck onto our screens, created a controversy, and showed which pollie had an upturned worm (Rudd) and whose worm was headed seriously south (Howard's).

Such a simple data visualisation sums up the action succinctly, makes politics fun for children ("look, the worm is going UP"!) and personally I'd like it to see it as an on-screen option on most TV shows. As in, "I think this show sucks (worm down), what do others think?". "Yep – it's a downturned worm."

*Note to those outside of Australia, the Liberal Party is not known for its 'liberal' standpoint on things. Which is, well, weird given their name. They don't like worms either. And – 'the worm', just in case you're wondering, is at the bottom of the images shown above.

DataVis Update

I've noticed that a few design schools have linked to my Information Design category (nice to have you aboard). One significant link on data visualisation included in the post below (in my recent highlights) does warrant another mention and a thereby gets a dedicated listing in that category so you can find it more easily.

Here is Data Visualisation: Modern Approaches – a must read for designers interested in this field. It covers the breadth and depth of recent developments in this area very well and also lists some data vis tools and more resources. Students (and others): now go forth and visualise data interestingly!

Korean Graphical Approval Rating

The above graphical approval rating system was spotted on Daum, Korea's MSN-style portal. Site visitors rank the page content via these icons. From left to right:

– I like it!
- I really, really like it! In fact I'm almost wetting my pants! Oops...
– I'm losing my cool! I really don't like it!!
– Ohhhh... I told you I didn't like it...
– Now I'm really upset... why don't you listen to me?
– I don't get mad, but I'm about to get even!
– Sigh... no-one values my opinion. And Wednesday is 'broccoli day' at the cafeteria...
– I will now spew bile in your general direction. This is what our web-relationship has come to.
– Time to go 'stoneface'.
– Enough is enough! This is a virtual jab to your solar plexus!
– Missile bunker no.1.
– Missile bunker no.2.
– Missile bunker no. 3 (don't push me... my finger... is on... the button).

Whilst you're at the site, make sure you check out the extremely cute 'Bambino' USB drives and their warm'n cosy USB drive covers. Warm data does work better. Thanks Honie.

Contemporary Constellations

Jonathan Harris unveils another in a long line of data visualisations with Universe (which was unveiled at the recent TED conference). "Universe was inspired by questions like: if we could draw new constellations in our night sky today, what would those be? What are our great stories? What are our great journeys? Who are our heroes and heroines? Who are our Gods and Goddesses? What is our modern mythology? Universe tries to answer these questions through analysis of global media coverage, as construed by Daylife".

In the celestial interface of Universe, each of the myriad of stars form constellations and each of these constellations relates to a real-life counterpart sourced from online media coverage. The (very) open-ended nature of the interface is terrific – just jump in, hunt for a topic of interest and explore the many connections and linkages that emerge – and the aesthetics of Universe are really something too. Harris has devised a typeface where the letterforms are created by a constellation of stars that glimmer against the night sky. Navigating through the interface as it expands, contracts, changes colour (and twinkles) and forms new celestial connections is pleasantly rewarding. It's really 'nice' to use: immersive, engaging and fun.

Clever – as usual, Mr Harris – and bonus points for the animated constellation typeface.

Other works by Jonathan Harris I've blogged are here.
And I should mention the site wouldn't work for me on an Intel Mac. Older Macs – no problem.

Installation Situation

Our studio's new Fuji Xerox printer works a treat. Finding identical twins to install it was a tad difficult though.

Mapped

+ A trace animation showing two days of courier activity in London. Via O'Reilly Radar.

+ The map of Early Modern London. Via Coudal.

+ Where was that photo taken? Geotagging your photos in Flickr. Over 1.5 million now geotagged. Via Design Detector. You want to search for 'photos of food in Southern Asia'? Glad you asked. Look here. Search more here.